14.1 Development of Self, Personality, and Identity in Middle Adulthood

According to many theories regarding the development of self, the primary challenge of middle adulthood is to prioritize the mentoring and care of others (generativity).
Generativity can be achieved through the expansion of adult roles at home, work, and in the community. While the transitions at this time of life can be challenging, anxiety associated with these changes can be managed through mature defense mechanisms.
Failure to embrace generativity or use of immature defense mechanisms can result in unhealthy developmental stagnation. However, the experience of a midlife crisis is not typical.
Dispositional personality traits can be stable throughout adulthood as a result of niche-picking and gene-environment correlations. Environments that are a good fit for personality traits promote congruence and satisfaction.
Environments that present challenges or role expansion may facilitate changes to perspectives, goals, and behaviors as people adapt to new experiences. These changes become integrated into people’s life stories.
Identity continues to develop as part of a person’s life story but increases in its stability over time.

14.2 Contexts: Love and Romance in Middle Adulthood

Attachment style can be applied to understand close relationships throughout life. Secure attachments in adulthood are associated with greater well-being, while insecure attachments are associated with greater psychological and physical distress.
Love relationships can vary in their level of intimacy, passion, and commitment.
While marriage is typically associated with psychological, financial, and health benefits, the age of first marriage has been increasing over time.
Laws protecting marriage equality for those in the LGBTQ+ community have improved worldwide, but significant legal barriers still exist in most countries.
Spousal roles in marital relationships vary, with some organized more traditionally by gender roles and others more egalitarian. Conflict resolution, communication, trust, and friendship are key to happy marital relationships.
While the overall U.S. divorce rate has been gradually declining for several decades, gray divorces have been gradually rising.
Although divorce can have negative consequences, these negative impacts tend to decrease over time. Legal mediation and divorce counseling during the divorce process can decrease the negative impacts on spouses and children.
Dating in midlife can be different from young adulthood as the availability and preferences of partners change with age. Most divorced adults remarry but face additional challenges as they reconcile impacts of divorce and integrate blended families.

While family households are the most common type, household types are becoming more varied over time, each with unique features, benefits, and challenges.
Parents in middle adulthood will encounter changes as their growing children become more independent, but most parent-child relationships are able to adjust and retain or even improve their closeness.
As the family system changes throughout middle adulthood, parents may experience positive or negative spillover between their work and family life. Family cohesion can be promoted by flexibility and support within the family.

In middle adulthood, parents may find themselves contributing to the care of their children and their aging parents, giving rise to the term “sandwich generation.” These responsibilities can create a type of role strain called caregiver burden.
Parents in the launching phase must encourage their young adult children to develop independence while maintaining a supportive home base. This transition sometimes involves young adult children temporarily returning to live in the parents’ home after an initial departure.
Once children are no longer living in the home, midlife parents enter the empty-nest period. While this transition requires an adjustment away from the demands of parenting, empty-nest parents can reinvest in their relationship and leisure activities and serve as a source of wisdom to younger generations.
Some parents become grandparents in middle adulthood. Grandparents are often an important source of support and care to their grandchildren, which can result in both satisfaction and also stress.

Happiness in adulthood can be based on both short-term factors, such as enjoyable activities, and longer-term factors, such as financial stability or social support.
Life satisfaction in adulthood is influenced both by individual factors as well as cultural values. Influences on life satisfaction also change with age.
Generative priorities can produce happiness derived from a sense of purpose or meaning, but successful growth in adulthood is facilitated by balancing one’s self with the responsibility to care for others.
Reflection on one’s actual and possible selves can facilitate this balance and healthy development of self.